WRONG
by V. Thomas
Summary: Lestrade has to deal with yet another press conference while investigating a series of murders. This time, though, it's going to end on a rather peculiar, incredibly familiar note.


**Diclaimer: I do not own BBC Sherlock.**

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Detective Inspector Lestrade would have liked nothing more than to call the press conference off. He had a string of murders he needed to investigate. Instead, the piranhas calling themselves journalists would interrogate him about it and, in short, waste his time. He scowled.

"Go on. Best get it over with." Sally Donovan tilted her head toward the door, casting a glance down at her phone at the same time. When she looked back up, she added, "Before there's another body." It seemed she sensed his impatience.

"Right, yeah," he muttered. Then he straightened his jacket and strode into the conference room, desperately wishing to be somewhere else. Donovan followed him without another word.

As Lestrade walked in, the journalists burst into a frenzy, shouting over one another in a futile attempt to be heard. Nothing new, Lestrade decided as he demanded everyone settle down and take a seat. It was just the usual media chaos.

When the last of the reporters restrained themselves from calling out every question on their mind, Lestrade began to release as much detail as he could without inviting another storm of queries and criticisms. There were three dead, two men and a woman. All were doctors, but there was yet to be a connection discovered between any of them. The commonalities ended at their profession.

"They were discovered alone behind locked doors and closed windows, each shot in the back of the head. So far, no weapons have been found," Lestrade explained, shifting in his seat. This conference wasn't getting him anywhere with the case. Next to him, Sally checked her phone again, still not receiving an update worth their time. It appeared they shared a keen lack of interest in sitting around and talking about serial murders when they should be solving them.

As Lestrade looked around, not wanting to divulge any more information, a journalist propelled herself to her feet. "These people were found alone in their homes, doors locked, and they were murdered. Sounds quite like the case a few years ago with Lukis and Van Coon. Do you think it's connected in any way?"

"No," said Lestrade rather bluntly. "Not at all." Before anyone else could jump in to compare the murders to his previous cases, he took a question from a slight young man standing in the back.

"If it proves to be similar to that case," the man began slowly, "do you think you may need to bring in outside help like before? A private detective?"

There it was. The inevitable, albeit nameless reference to London's famous consulting detective made Lestrade grimace. Holmes had been denounced as a fake, a charlatan. The detective inspector wasn't sure how much of that he believed, but the public was. They gobbled it up, the idea that Holmes had duped so many people for so long. For months after his suicide, London positively buzzed with gossip and theories as to how Holmes had been part of so many scandals without tipping off a single person. The stories put the Yard to shame, too, and that was something Lestrade just couldn't have.

"Look," he growled, getting to his feet. "The case involving Lukis and Van Coon has been closed. These murders are completely unrelated, a case of their own. We do not need outside help. We do not need a private detective. We do not need Holmes, or any equivalent thereof."

As the words left Lestrade's mouth, the room erupted into a chorus of chirps and whistles. Phones shone brightly through pockets and rattled in purses. Even Donovan's phone sprang to life, a little envelope appearing onscreen. Lestrade found his hands shaking just the tiniest bit as he resisted the urge to look at his own phone. This had occurred only once before on so massive a scale. He remembered the occasion well, and it should not be happening again. It was just someone who'd been there the first time, just someone trying to make a joke, he tried to tell himself as he peered out at the bewildered faces. There was no other explanation.

A woman near the front gave voice to the impossible, though, tapping her phone and raising it as if to show him the screen. He couldn't see the text message, but knew what was there before she even opened her mouth. As impossible as it was, Lestrade _knew_ what was there.

"It just says '_WRONG_.'"


End file.
